How I Clean Old Furniture Hardware

Have you ever bought a vintage or antique piece of furniture and the knobs and handles look like they have been around since the dawn of time?

Me too.

The thought of scrubbing all those doo-dads used to turn me off to making the purchase or if I did buy, I wouldn't reuse the knobs it came with -  I'd just buy new hardware or search in the garage for old hardware that was less cruddy looking.

These days I keep the old hardware and reuse it, I like the price of that.

The above pulls were pretty gross, all green and nasty.

My secret weapons?

White or red vinegar occasionally coupled with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, with a side of toothbrush.

First I put the doo-dads in a jar of vinegar and let them soak for a day.

The photo above is after the handles had already been soaking for 24 hours.  I was already pleased with their transformation even before a little scrubbing. 

When the handles went in the jar there was no shine on them.  So dull and grimy in fact, that I thought the finish on them was suppose to be that way.

I rinsed them off and gave them a quick scrub with an old toothbrush and they turned out clean and sparkly.

These are heavy handles with lots of detail on both the backplate and the handle pull.

I removed them from a little oak washstand that I decided to makeover.

The handles below are in the opening photo on this post, and they were all green and dirty before they went into vinegar.

I could probably polish them a bit more, but I like a little age to show on old stuff.

These pulls are also heavy, and when the toothbrush wasn't getting in all the grooves good enough I used the magic eraser on them.

The previously green rusted pulls came from a a small buffet that I cleaned up and partly painted over summer and it is now in my dining room.

I wasn't going to keep the buffet, but it came in the house to finish painting and it hasn't left.

Looking around it seems I've acquired a lot of junk that stopped to visit and never left.  Hmmm.....